All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Columbine above Rivulet before Creek Fire

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THE SECRET

The old woman, rolling away

on a stretcher, clawed the air,

leaving goo an inch deep

in her frying pan, a sink

and counter conquered

by crusty dishes, countless

bottles on the windowsills,

and the odor of cat deep

in the ratty carpet. I once

stared at the heart-shaped leaves

of a coleus, timeless,

my grandmother timeless too

as she washed dishes in a patch

of sunlight before my mother

returned. The dog and turtle

at home shared the secret

with the toad, the swallow,

the columbine, the tiny creek

in the neighborhood, before

I was called back and scolding

broke the spell. I was afraid

of the war like everyone, sure

that it would drag on

until my time came, and I forgot,

waking to the alarm clock

so that I could see my father home

from work before I got ready

for school. I believed then

that we had one chance

to forget the clock,

that we could conquer those

who fed us time--we could

because we knew we were

a family that included

the turtle and the dog, the reed

and the minnow, and we could see

the secret in each other's eyes,

gazing hard a long time

because we had to.

All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Lower San Joaquin River

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BATTLING CURRENTS 

Immersing myself in the upper San Joaquin,

I flowed with the current, following

my brother to a rock wall

on the other side. Suddenly I could see

a large group around the bend,

all naked, lounging on a cliff, one

woman squatting, all by herself.

I stared, unable to make out

her features. My brother suddenly

plunged back against the current, thrashing

until he reached the other shore. I remained,

gawking at naked men, one of whom

stumbled closer and gazed down at me

accusingly. I edged closer

to the strong, middle current,

suddenly sensing that swift water

might pin me to the rock wall

or sweep me down river if I slid out

a tiny bit farther. Suddenly

my overwhelming desire to see,

for the first time, a real naked woman—

vanished. I shouted to my brother—

two years older and stronger—but he

was already gone or wouldn’t answer.

As I inched along the slick rock, away

from the main current, back to a safer point

(where I could not climb out), I cursed him

over and over. Exhausted, nearly frozen,

with my last ounce of willpower, I flailed

through the water—so wildly it probably

looked like I was trying to beat the river

to death, but I somehow made it back. 

Emerging from the water, I no longer thought

that my brother intended to harm me—

only that currents can be so powerful

that they can drown you.

 All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Pounding Stone with Pestle

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HOOPS

I shoved the ball toward the hoop

with all my might, missing by two or three feet.

The second shot, the ball hovered on the rim

and dropped in. My brother punched my arm

while my father cheered. I dashed into the house

to tell my uncle that I had made a basket. On TV,

fire was consuming a cross-legged man in an orange robe

as traffic swirled around him. Sobbing,

I flung myself back outside. “Why would a man

light himself on fire?” I bleated. My uncle

stepped into the doorway: “The boy just needs

to get used to it.” (My Dad told me later

that my uncle’s plane was shot down in WWII,

and my uncle was still waking up screaming

at night.) My brother kept bouncing the ball.

My Dad draped his arm around me for a moment,

then sauntered over to my uncle to ask

what caused the outburst. Soon they all went inside.

I paced the driveway for awhile, then grabbed

the ball, shooting again and again until I made it in.

All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Pounding Stone next to River

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POUNDING STONE NEAR CAMPGROUND

Hurling a pine cone at my brother,

I reeled through brittle needles to hide

behind a large stone at the edge

of the forest: I was the cowboy,

and he was the Indian. As I jumped up

to fling a pebble, I glimpsed smooth cups

in the stone, a few of which brimmed with humus.

“Stop!” I screeched as my brother

pelted me with pine cones. “You’re 

dead! Told you, I'm the cowboy!"

he shouted. Dizzy, I felt like I

was going to fall into some other life.

“Boys!” Dad shouted from the campground

to return me from some other time, “Let's all

go to the lake!” But I didn’t move

from the stone at the edge of the forest.

Finally, Dad ambled over. “What

is this?” I demanded. “Mud people

lived here,” he sneered. “Let’s go!”

“Where are the mud people? Where

did they go?” I wondered, but Dad

didn’t answer. For a moment I

was afraid, as he strode farther

and farther ahead of me, that I

might be one of the mud people,

and I froze, alone

between the strange stone

and the tiny boat by the shore. 

 All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Pestles on a Pounding Stone

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TETHER BALL AT RECESS

The tether ball chains chimed at the beginning

of recess, but we hung out under the monkey bars. I

was the disputed tether ball champion, but my friend

refused to play, no matter how strongly I urged him.

My friend finally told me the reason: As his cousin

was riding his bike through the park, near

the rioting, a cop pulled him down and beat him.

“He’s only twelve years old. He wasn’t hurting anyone:

Why would they do that?” “I don’t know,” I mourned--

“C’mon, let’s play tether ball!” He turned away, “I can’t.

My parents told me I can’t be with white people anymore

because you just can’t trust 'em.” I shouted over

the ringing chains, "But I didn’t do anything!”

Squinting and sweating, he just shook his head

at everything I said as fists kept thudding and the balls

kept whirling. I never played tether ball again. 

All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Pelican Patrol

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THE DECKHAND

He held up a bait-fish, the size of smelt,

showing how to hook the fish behind the skull

so the target would jerk around, attracting

larger fish. "They don’t feel nothin’,"

 

he sneered. I grabbed one from the bait pool

and carefully slid the hook behind the skull

as the victim squirmed in my hand. The fish released

a faint, shrill scream as the barb entered

its brain. As I tossed my line into the sea,

the deckhand announced, "I figured that two here

on this trip wouldn’t last." Then he chortled

that he'd been wrong about one, the other

curled up half-dead on a cot in the cabin.

“Know what? Never been wrong before!”

he grinned as he squinted at me. My Dad

ignored him. Suddenly a greenhorn reeled

in a shark, and the deckhand shot it twice

in the head, but it kept flopping around,

so he heaved it over the side. A guy who kept

drinking beer and barfing over the railing

hooked a seagull, and the deckhand smirked

as the bird hovered behind the ship like a kite. Then

the deckhand saw me stare at a scar on his forehead.

"See this? I leaned over to pat a little girl

on the head, and she pulled out a gun

and shot me, but I’m as hard-headed

as a shark. When I woke up, I asked

what happened to her, and my buddy

told me they shot her in the head. Why did they

do that? She was only five years old!

She was a killer, he said. She’d do the same

to the next soldier. You know what

was worse? Some yippie rushed up to me

and spit on my face in the airport after

I made it home. They say the war’s

almost over, but I say it’ll be over the day

fish stop feasting on each other."

He pulled open a burlap bag, where

a lingcod gorged on a red snapper.

Then he winked and howled with laughter.

All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Dowitchers at Sunset

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STAYING BALANCED

Nothing would stay put in those heaves.

They stabbed and stuck, with spiny gills,

needle-like teeth--sharp fins sheared

through burlap--I wanted to murder

them there. Lingcod gorged

on snapper even in my sack,

tails protruding

from insatiable maws,

heads stuck deep

in dead throats, and me,

clinging to the railing--

while the deckhand chuckled

and the whole world rolled--

always so off-balance

I couldn't leap into the waves.

 All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Toad in Tree Root

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BACKYARD BASEBALL

One of us poised near tree roots,

grasping a ball of mushed wet paper

wrapped in rubber bands, the other, in front

of the shed door, waving a broken broom handle.

 

The ball flew like thought

from mound to shed, and both of us

connected, four or five times, whacking

it over the leafed-out fruitless mulberry

to plop in the neighbor’s yard. Like

super stars in a world series game,

for an afternoon we were sometimes one

with bat and ball, clearly reading

the opposition. Then Dad died,

and my brother moved away. The tree

rotted from within, a stump where

two toads made their home

in the hollow roots, the eaves

of the shed dangling a long beehive,

the house finally abandoned.

In the shed thick with webs,

I found the broom handle

and stepped up to the plate. As

I swung the bat, I recalled how

my brother had smacked the ball

so sweetly that it sailed high over

the tree, over the fence,

and kept flying to where

we could never find it again.